1. Don, Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background with Reiki, who you trained with and what service you provide now?

When I first heard of Reiki, I had been a freelance writer for 16
years and I was sick of words. For a couple years, I had been getting
a message in my head: "What you need is a wordless form of
communication." But I didn't know what it could be. Then I saw a
poster for a Reiki class. The word "Reiki" attracted me -- and, when I
read the description, I felt immediately that this was the wordless
form of communication I had been looking for. That was in 1991. I took
the first-level class, and then the second level three months later --
and I felt that Reiki was connecting me to my Real Self, more than
ever before.

My first two levels of training were through Phil Morgan (in Portland,
Oregon, USA). Then it took almost eight years for me to find the right
teacher for level three. That was Deborah Frank (in Hamburg, New
York). Because of Deb and her lineage, I learned about and was allowed
to attend the first Usui Reiki Ryoho International (URRI) conference,
held in 1999 in Vancouver, Canada. The featured speaker was Hiroshi
Doi, a member of the Usui Reiki Society in Tokyo. Mr. Doi's
presentation was a great inspiration and turning point for me, in my
knowlege and understanding of Reiki. The following month, I attended a
workshop given by Arjava Petter and Chetna Kobayashi, which was also
helpful.

The next year, I received an email from a Reiki teacher in England --
Taggart King, whom I had never previously heard of -- with something I
could never have imagined: information from a group of centenarian
Reiki teachers in Japan, who had been taught by Mikao Usui himself in
the early 1900s! During the next two years, I received more of this
information through Taggart, and much of it became the basis of a
book, Reiki, The True Story. Other great contributions (to the book
and to my understanding of Reiki) came from the Reiki teacher and
researcher Dave King.

Except for that book, most of the services I provide are through my
website johreiki.net. On the site is a Distant Healing Circle (50+
volunteers directing Reiki at every hour, day and night, to all who
request it), and I give Reiju (Reiki empowerment) every day to all who
request that. I also give three levels of Reiki initiation and
training, mostly to people in faraway places (who find me through the
website).

As I write this (June 2010) I'm in the midst of a tour of Serbia,
Romania, Italy, and Turkey -- giving workshops and presentations on
Reiki and Johrei (and visiting friends).

2. How would you interpret the word 'Reiki'?

I think the simplest and most literal translation of it is
"spirit energy." And, specifically, reiki is understood to be the
highest of seven physical energies -- which not only directs and
coordinates the lower six energies, but also brings the energy of
Spirit or Source (Shinki, "God energy") into the physical dimension.
That is reiki's great ability and that's how it connects us to the
Real Self, how it brings about Self-realization and healing.

3. What do you think is happening in a Reiki session?

The way I see it, the Source of every particle of matter is
within the particle itself, in what I call the Source-dimension.
There, in the Source-dimension, is the perfect, original blueprint for
that particle of matter. By focusing our attention (with the hands or
the mind) on the reiki in the particle, we bring in (from the
Source-dimension) the original blueprint. And when the physical
manifestation of the particle re-aligns with its original blueprint,
it regains its perfect health.

It took years for me to come to this realization. During those years,
when I had the concept of reiki as an energy that came down into my
body through the crown, and that I then gave this energy, through my
hands, to other people -- the reiki did its work of bringing
Self-realization and healing. But I feel that it continues to work
more and more effectively as my concept of it becomes more accurate.
Nowadays, my concept and my intent is the opening of the
Source-dimension within matter -- the bringing-in of Source energy
(Shinki) from inside -- rather than giving any kind of energy from
outside. Just recently I was delighted to learn, from a student of The
Radiance Technique, that The Radiance Technique teaches a similar
concept -- of reiki bringing-in Spirit or Source energy from within
the area being treated.

4. What do you think is happening, at a basic level, in a Reiki attunement/initiation/reiju?

I'll use the word "empowerment" to encompass
attunement/initiation/reiju. And, fundamentally, I see reiki
"empowerment" and reiki "treatment" as doing the same thing: Both are
opening the Source-dimension within matter, and bringing-in more
Source energy, God energy, Life energy. Both are restoring the
original, perfect blueprint, to whatever degree they can. We may call
one thing "healing" and another thing "empowerment" -- but, in
reality, healing is also empowerment and empowerment is also healing!

Reiki "treatment" or "healing" is usually defined and practiced as
something that does not empower the recipient's own reiki abilities.
This goes back to the concept of reiki as being an energy that is
applied by one person to another, from outside. It's a concept that
seems quite inferior to opening the Source-dimension within the
recipient, and bringing-in both empowerment and healing from there. We
know, from Japanese students who were taught by Mikao Usui himself,
that Usui routinely gave reiju empowerment along with reiki healing,
to awaken the recipient's own reiki abilities. Usui's focus was on
Self-realization, self-empowerment for everyone. That makes much
better sense to me, and that is also my intent with Reiki. I do reiju
with many people all over the world, every day -- whether they have
previous reiki experience or not.

Then, when students request initiation to each level of Reiki, I use
the reiju procedure in specific ways, to incorporate individual
aspects of reiki. In all cases, though, what is really happening is
the opening of the Source-dimension, the bringing-in of Life energy,
and Self-realization. The different "levels" of Reiki are really just
arbitrary.

5. Do you think Reiki can be used to help situations and inanimate objects as well as living things?

Absolutely! I've seen it happen countless times. In all cases, it
works the same way -- opening the Source-dimension, bringing-in the
original, spiritual blueprint and helping it to manifest physically.

6. Reiki is now becoming popular within the medical system. What role do you believe Reiki plays in the traditional medical system?

By "traditional," I'm guessing that you mean the current,
pharmaceutical system. If so, I would like to point out that this kind
of "medicine" is less traditional even than Coca-Cola -- that it's
been around for a very short time (and probably will not survive much
longer)! I see the role of Reiki as the same with or without
pharmaceutical medicine: It's a way of connecting us to the True Self,
bringing Self-realization and genuine health.

7. Distant Reiki and permission has always been a topic with many pros & cons. What's your view on this given the earthquake disasters in Haiti and Chile?

I think it's best to ask permission when feasible -- but really
just as a courtesy. If we are truly "doing" Reiki and nothing else,
then we are only helping to bring about the perfect manifestation of
the recipient, as originally conceived in Spirit. That's why Reiki
never does any harm. The possibility of doing harm comes in when we
involve our personal will, our personal desire, and we try to bring
about our own preferred outcome.

8. Many Reiki practitioners say you can go back into the past and heal it. What's your take on this issue?

I'd say that Past and Future are not real in the first place,
they are only concepts in this game that we have created for
ourselves. But, by directing reiki to a chosen point in the "past" or
"future," we can heal things in the Present. Likewise, "distance" is
also just a concept of our own creation -- and the reason that
"distant" reiki works is because really there is NO distance, we are
simply realizing our Oneness with "other" beings. Because of this, we
can "send" reiki at 5:00 o'clock our time, for example, to be
"received" by someone in a different place at 8:00 o'clock their time!

9. Have you had any notable experiences concerning Reiki that you could tell us about?

Probably the most spectacular one was a case of "distant" healing
and "past" healing. I was contacted by someone in another country, and
I started "sending" her reiki. I was doubting how much it would help,
because she had sent me a great long list of her problems and diseases
-- really an enormous list of almost everything imaginable, physical,
mental, and emotional. I did Reiki with her for a couple weeks, and
she was feeling slightly better. And then she told me, she was feeling
that all of her problems really had originated from a traumatic
experience she had suffered 16 years before. So I "sent" reiki to her
at that earlier time and place, and then I heard nothing from her for
two weeks. I wrote to ask how she was feeling. She wrote back
apologizing for not writing sooner, and said she was feeling so
wonderful, and she was so busy doing things and enjoying life, she
just had not found the time to write! All of her problems were either
gone or dissolving. She was planning a trip to visit her sister in
another country, after years of no contact between them -- and her
life was suddenly going beautifully!

Another one, though not quite as spectacular, has impressed me even
more because it involves me directly. A few years ago, after a year of
tremendous emotional trauma, my heart was disintegrating --
physically, as well as every other way. Because of something that had
happened, I felt it was no longer possible for me to achieve my
purpose on Earth in this lifetime. My heart no longer wanted to be
here, and it was disintegrating. Nothing in my body was working
correctly then. The lungs were filling with water. I couldn't sleep;
hadn't slept in weeks. I was barely surviving from one breath to the
next (which was a great lesson in mindfulness!). Finally, at the
request of my mother, I allowed myself to be taken to a doctor -- who
put me immediately in a wheelchair and wheeled me across the street to
the hospital. I allowed myself to be held captive there for five days
-- simply because I was not able to do anything else. The doctors gave
me pills, of course, but they said the only thing that could really
help me was a heart transplant. I said, "No, thanks" to that; my heart
would either heal itself or not. Then I just had to decide: Did I want
to live or not?

I wanted to live -- and I had been giving myself reiki throughout this
whole experience, of course (as I always did). Then many other people
began sending reiki (and other forms of healing) to me, when they
found out what I was going through. But there was still the problem of
feeling that I could not fulfill my purpose in this lifetime. I was
stuck on that for a while, and then I decided that surely the infinite
creativity of Life could make whatever adjustments and substitutions
were necessary to bring it about. With that decision or realization,
the healing of my heart really began to progress. To my own surprise,
just a few months later, I found myself giving Reiki classes and
climbing hills (very steep ones!) in Romania and Turkey!

10. Can you describe your relationship with Reiki, and how it's affected you?

The best description I can give is what I said before, that Reiki
connects me to my Real Self. Of course, we are always connected to the
Self, but sometimes we need something to make us aware of the
connection. For me, Reiki does the best job of that. Reiki is my
natural form of meditation. And when I think of the person I was
before I started practicing Reiki, and the person I am now -- the
difference between them is barely imaginable.

11. Do you feel that Reiki needs standard guidelines across the board for practitioners to obtain certification?

Hmmmm.... Ultimately, I feel that the attempt to impose human
guidelines or standards in general is an exercise in futility; one
more example of us trying, with the personal will, to control the
uncontrollable. It seems that Life, with its infinite creativity,
always manages to arrange things better than we can. Life, or Nature,
or the Real Self, seems to prefer diversity over standardization. And,
when someone pops up with a different way of doing Reiki, for example
-- no matter how kooky -- there will either be people attracted to it
or not. If so, they are attracted because, in some way, they are
getting something they need from it. If no one is attracted to it,
then the new way of doing Reiki will soon disappear. I think we live
in a self-regulating universe, where everything is really just perfect
-- and we spend outrageous amounts of time and energy and effort doing
things that don't need to be done! In fact, one of the fundamental
things I've learned from reiki itself is the great value of not-doing.

12. Is there anything that I/we have not asked that you find is important when talking about Reiki?

I think you've covered things very well. The one thing that I
like to emphasize at every opportunity is that Reiki is a Way of
Self-realization -- as Mikao Usui perceived it to be -- and that the
"healing" effects, though inevitable, are secondary.

13. What are your hopes & aspirations for the future of Reiki?

That people see, more and more, the total simplicity of it. As
with everything else, we have such a tendency to complicate Reiki --
with mountains of techniques and symbols and rules, and beliefs that
seem to have no real foundation, yet they get passed from generation
to generation. My current joke is that, if I ever write another Reiki
book, it will be no more than a pamphlet! Maybe just one paragraph, or
one sentence!! And I'm really not joking much when I say that. Reiki
is just one of countless Ways to Self-realization. In fact, everything
in Life, everything we ever experience, is taking us toward
Self-realization -- because there is truly nowhere else to go! We will
all get there, even if we don't want to, because there is nowhere else
to go. I prefer to get there the simplest way I can; so, to me, Reiki
is very simple, and that's the way I teach it. I'm happy to see that
more and more people are ready and eager for such simplicity (though,
at the same time, I know that those people who prefer complexity and
complication are proceeding just as surely to Self-realization! : ^ ).


Thanks again --------
db

Don's main site: http://johreiki.net
His book/research site: http://reikithetruestory.com

Many thanks for that Don! I particularly like your emphasis on spirituality. And integration of scientific/spiritual concepts to explain Reiki things!

Don for taking time
from your busy schedule to share.

I noted empowerment and simplicity
as vocabulary that enhances the
Reiki theme.

KISS = keep it slow simple

Thanks, Don!
Great answers. I think we can all learn such a lot from the responses in tehse interviews!

Thank You, Don!
The most beautiful thing is to realise who we are!
And then, to feel and live this every moment.
I realised, not long time ago, that the simplest way is the true way!
And the True Way is always the simplest!
Everything is so simple!
And still don't understand why people like to complicate their lives.
But, in the same time, I don't want to understand this, because I feel that this understanding will change something inside of me, that I will not be the same.
So, I want only to be Me, and live and be only in " I Am what I Am", keeping and loving my Pure and True form.
Thank You, again, for everything!
And thanks Universe for Your Existance!
We are All!
And All we Are!
Dhyana

Goog God Dhyana! That's a nice start to the forum! Please introduce yourself in our welcome section. And give us all some more of that stuff!

Checked out his site and they're open for more volunteers (level 2 and above) for their Distand Healing Circle group.

I definitely plan on it once I've practiced at that level myself. Thought you all might be interested. :-)

Have a great weekend,

Great interview... wonder how I missed this one. Thanks for highlighting it again for me, brightspotonthesun!

Thank you, very interesting! Indeed the simplicity and spirituality speak to me.